COVID infections are spiking in Stanislaus County. Is there a lower fatality rate?
A rising tide of infections in the Northern San Joaquin Valley increases the chance that residents will catch the COVID-19 illness, but health experts believe the risk of death is lower than in previous stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Stanislaus County’s test positivity rate for COVID has risen to 10.17% and 43 patients are hospitalized with the disease, up from 27 in mid-May. Two local patients are in intensive care units.
The county remains at low community-level spread by the standards of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearby San Joaquin and Merced counties are at the medium level and so are other regions of Northern California, including the Bay Area.
The CDC looks at new cases per 100,000 in the past seven days in calculating the community infection levels at low, medium or high.
San Joaquin County was at 289 cases per 100,000 last week, Merced was 214 per 100,000 and Stanislaus was 194 per 100,000. In the latest update, Merced moved back to the low community level, while Sacramento, Santa Clara and Monterey counties were assigned to high.
Kamlesh Kaur, a public health spokesperson for Stanislaus County, cited wastewater data showing the B.A.2 subvariant, or stealth omicron, is circulating among county residents. The subvariant was named “stealth” omicron because it was more difficult to identify with testing when the delta strain was still prevalent.
The county is seeing case outbreaks tied to gatherings such as graduation parties, Kaur said by text. County public health is recommending that people wear masks especially when they’re in large groups.
In counties with a low level of infection, the CDC recommends wearing masks on public transportation and when people have symptoms, a positive test result or recent exposure to someone with COVID-19.
The recommendations for medium level are the same, but people may consider wearing a mask as protection in public. Those at risk of serious illness should consider wearing a mask indoors in public and taking additional precautions such as social distancing and hand-washing, the CDC says.
Kaur said the OptumServe stations at the Salida library parking lot, at 4835 Sisk Road, and the Rube Boesch Center, 275 N. Orange St. in Turlock are test-to-treat sites. Residents who have come down with symptoms and are vulnerable to a serious bout with COVID-19 can get testing and antiviral medication at these sites.
The antiviral drugs should be taken within days of symptom onset.
As of last week, California was averaging 12,360 coronavirus cases and nine deaths per day, while 2,100 patients were hospitalized with COVID.
Stanislaus County has not recorded more than five coronavirus deaths per week since March. No one knows how the recent increase of omicron subvariant infections will affect the death toll.
With the county at a lower level of transmission this spring, a single death was confirmed in a public health surveillance period from May 8 to May 21. The county’s death toll for the pandemic stands at 1,759.
Health officials caution that the omicron subvariants are capable of causing serious complications. Kaur said most of the COVID patients in hospitals are not vaccinated. Tools such as vaccines, booster shots, antiviral drugs and monoclonal antibodies are available to prevent hospitalization and death, she said, but those options were not available when the original coronavirus disease arrived here in 2020.
Fatality rate has declined
George Lemp, an epidemiologist, released data this week showing the case fatality rate was substantially lower with the omicron strain in California.
According to Lemp’s data, the state had 11,662 deaths from the 3.4 million cases in the time period when omicron was predominant, Dec. 23 to Feb. 23. That’s a .34% mortality rate.
The fatality ratio was 1.11% when the Delta strain was raging the second half of 2021 and was 1.7% with the original coronavirus from February 2020 to May 2021.
Lemp, an infectious disease expert and former director of the state’s HIV/AIDS research program, said the COVID fatality rate is getting nearer to the death rate for seasonal flu, which was .13% before the pandemic.
In an email, Lemp said he believes vaccinations, booster shots, antiviral drugs and better patient care are reasons for the COVID fatality-rate decline, plus the new viral strains that evolved are not as virulent. The omicron strains seem to infect tissue in the upper regions of the respiratory tract.
Local deaths from omicron
Not long ago coronavirus deaths were more common in Stanislaus County. Since Dec. 1, a total of 273 county residents have died from the disease, with most of the deaths occurring in the four months from December to the end of March.
The month of December marked the tail end of the Delta variant surge. The county’s first case of omicron infection was reported Dec. 31. Almost 70% of the COVID deaths since Dec. 1 were in the 65-and-over age category. The county also confirmed 38 deaths in the adults age 25 to 44 and 47 deaths in adults 55 to 64.
Kaur said the public should still take the disease seriously. “We have all the options available to minimize the impact,” her text said. “We strongly recommend all community members to follow the basic precautions to avoid severe illness and the risk of spreading the disease to the most vulnerable among us.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
